Soap. It is used to wash our hands, wash our bodies, and clean almost everything. According to Tyler Durden, one of the main protagonists in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, soap is a bi-product of human sacrifice and destruction. It is through destruction of the material world that Durden cleanses himself. Though the novel pulls its reader through a whirlwind of violence, it also reveals a passageway for ridding ourselves of the sickness of social conformity. In essence, the text offers the soap for our current generation. In this paper, I utilize the existential concepts of bad faith, meaning, and finitude to uncover how the main character in Fight Club creates meaning in his life through destruction. However, I argue that the message of the novel is ultimately hopeful. It challenges readers not to limit themselves, rather, to seek out meaning through accepting responsibility for one's own life.
